Photo credit: Agriworks Uganda, one of this year's microgrant recipients.

IDIN is pleased to announce its latest microgrant awards supporting innovative and scalable technologies and ventures that address basic social and environmental needs.

This fall’s recipients were chosen from a competitive pool of 30 applicants by a panel of 20 technical and business experts.

Applications were chosen based on criteria such as the applicant’s skills and experience, social impact of the project, potential for scale, marketability, and the proposed workplan.

This year’s applicants represented 16 different countries across five regions as well as a variety of sectors including water and sanitation, education, environment, and agriculture.

The following are this fall’s microgrant recipients:

*Eco-Friendly Brick Press – Wilio Albuquerque  (IDDS 2012, 2013)
Wilio will use his microgrant to further develop his eco-friendly brick press, which produces low-cost, durable bricks in Brazil.

School Innovation Toolkit – Betty Ikalany  (IDDS 2014)
Betty and her team from IDDS 2014 will continue to develop educational curriculum for hands-on appropriate technology development in primary schools in Uganda.

*Rural Lighting Solutions – Mensah Solomon Kumah (IDDS 2009, 2011, Rethink Relief Uganda)
Mensah will disseminate solar technology to rural communities in Ghana to reduce the cost of lighting and provide meaningful training and capacity building for young people interested in solar technology.

MoSan Toilet – Mona Mijthab (IDDS 2014)
Mona will continue development of the MoSan toilet and collect user feedback to optimize the prototype and its sanitation service to provide people with dignity, safety and hygiene, and to protect the environment from contamination.

Peanut Sheller – Stephen Mvula (IDDS 2013)
Stephen will develop a low-cost, easy-to-use device that shells peanuts, a high-value crop with income-generating potential in Zambia.

Wrind Water – Mustafa Naseem (IDDS 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014)
Mustafa will design and prototype a stand-alone water quality measurement and dispensing unit that attaches to a water filtration plant to automatically and accurately dispense a fixed daily quota of water to registered users.

Rock Drill – Lawrence Ojok (IDDS 2014)
Lawrence will design and prototype a low-cost rock drill machine prototype  for miners in Tanzania.

*Bee Pollen Dryer – David Saleh (IDDS 2013)
David will continue work on his energy-efficient bee pollen dryer prototypes designed for small-scale farmers to produce better quality bee pollen in Colombia

Agriworks – Abraham Salomon (IDDS 2014)
Abraham and the team at Agriworks will build prototypes of three new mobile irrigation systems for different customer segments to complement Agriworks’ flagship product, AMIS.

Green-Brick Entrepreneurs – Ritesh Singhania (IDDS 2014)
Ritesh will generate employment by training local entrepreneurs to make and build housing using eco-friendly blocks in India.

Bobo Eco Farm – Katharina Unger (IDDS 2014)
Katharina will co-create low-cost, small scale farm units that transform organic waste to animal feed by utilizing black solder fly and its larvae in Uganda.

The next round of IDIN microgrants is planned for Spring 2015. For more information, contact the IDIN Microgrants Committee.

IDIN would like to thank its microgrants committee – Network members Mariana Negrao, Bianca Anderson, and Ana Gonzales – for their hard work soliciting and reviewing applications as well as organizing the review process.

*Past microgrant recipient.